Railroad car

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American Wooden passenger car

British Mark 3 rail coach; an all-steel car from the 1970s

Inside a modern day car from Finland.

A railroad car or railway carriage is a vehicle on a rail transport system (railroad or railway) that is used for the carrying of cargo or passengers. Cars can be coupled together into a train and hauled by one or more locomotives. Passenger cars can be self propelled in which case they can be single or multiple units.

Most cars carry a "revenue" load, although "non-revenue" cars exist for the railroad's own use, such as for maintenance-of-way purposes. Such uses can generally be divided into the carriage of passengers and of freight. "Revenue" cars are basically of two types: passenger cars, or coaches, and freight cars or wagons/trucks.

Passenger cars

Passenger cars, or coaches, vary in their internal fittings:

In standard gauge cars, seating is usually between three and five seats across the width of the car, with an aisle in between (resulting in 2+1, 2+2 or 3+2 seats) or at the side. Tables may be present between seats facing one another. Alternatively, seats facing the same direction may have access to a fold-down ledge on the back of the seat in front.

• If the aisle is located between seats, seat rows may face the same direction, or be grouped, with twin rows facing each other. Sometimes, for example on a commuter train, seats may face the aisle.
• If the aisle is at the side, the car is usually divided in small compartments. These usually contain 6 seats, although sometimes in second class they contain 8, and sometimes in first class they contain 4.
• In vehicles intended for commuter services seats are sometimes placed with their backs to the carriage side. This gives a wide accessway and standing room which accommodates standing passengers at peak times and improves loading and unloading speeds.

Passenger cars can take the electricity supply for heating and lighting equipment from two main sources - either directly from a head end power generator on the locomotive via bus cables; or by an axle powered generator which continuously charges batteries whenever the train is in motion.

Modern cars usually have either air-conditioning or windows that can be opened (sometimes, for safety, not so far that one can hang out), or sometimes both. Various types of onboard train toilet facilities may also be provided.

Other types of passenger car exist, especially for long journeys, such as the dining car, parlor car, disco car, and in rare cases theater and movie theater car. In some cases another type of car is temporarily converted to one of these for an event.

Observation cars were built for the rear of many famous trains to allow the passengers to view the scenery. These proved popular, leading to the development of dome cars multiple units of which could be placed mid-train, and featured a glass-enclosed upper level extending above the normal roof to provide passengers with a better view.

Sleeping cars outfitted with (generally) small bedrooms allow passengers to sleep through their night-time trips, while couchette cars provide more basic sleeping accommodation. Long-distance trains often require baggage cars for the passengers' luggage. In European practice it used to be common for day coaches to be formed of compartments seating 6 or 8 passengers, with access from a side corridor. In the UK, Corridor coaches fell into disfavor in the 1960s and 1970s partially because open coaches are considered more secure by women traveling alone.

Another distinction is between single- and double deck train cars. An example of a double decker is the Amtrak superliner.

A "trainset" (or "set") is a semi-permanently arranged formation of cars, rather than one created 'ad hoc' out of whatever cars are available. These are only broken up and reshuffled 'on shed' (in the maintenance depot). Trains are then built of one or more of these 'sets' coupled together as needed for the capacity of that train.

Often, but not always, passenger cars in a train are linked together with enclosed, flexible gangway connections that can be walked through by passengers and crew members. Some designs incorporate semi-permanent connections between cars and may have a full-width connection, making in essence one longer, flexible 'car'. In North America, passenger equipment also employ tightlock couplings to keep a train reasonably intact in the event of a derailment or other accident.

Many multiple unit trains consist of cars which are semi-permanently coupled into sets; these sets may be joined together to form larger trains, but generally passengers can only move around between cars within a set. This "closed" nature allows the separate sets to be easily split to go separate ways. Some multiple-unit trainsets are designed so that corridor connections can be easily opened between coupled sets; this generally requires driving cabs either set off to the side or (as in the Dutch Koploper) above the passenger compartment. These cabs or driving trailers are also useful for quickly reversing the train.

Freight cars

American style Hopper Car.

Tank Car.

U.S. type Boxcar.

Articulated Well Cars with containers

A Spine car with a 20 ft tanktainer and an open-top 20 ft container with canvas cover

Freight cars (UK: "wagons" or "trucks") exist in a wide variety of types, adapted to the ideal carriage of a whole host of different things. Originally there were very few types of cars; the boxcar (UK: "van"), a closed box with side doors, was among the first.

• Aircraft Parts Car
• Autorack - (also called auto carriers) are specialized multi-level cars designed for transportation of unladen automobiles.
• Boxcar (US), covered wagon (UIC) or van (UIC) - box shape with roof and side or end doors.
• CargoSprinter - a self propelled container flatcar.
• Centerbeam cars
• Coil car - a specialized type of rolling stock designed for the transport of coils of sheet metal, particularly steel. They are considered a subtype of the gondola car, though they bear little resemblance to a typical gondola.
• Conflat (UK) - A flat truck for carrying containers.
• Covered wagon (UIC), van (UIC) or boxcar (US) - fully enclosed wagon for moisture-susceptible goods.
• Covered hopper - similar to open top hoppers but with a cover for weather and temperature-sensitive loads.
• Double-Stack Car (or well car) - specialized cars designed for carrying shipping containers. These have a "well" with a very low bottom floor to allow double stacking.
• Flatcar (or flat) - for larger loads that don't load easily into a boxcar. Specialized types such as the depressed-center flatcar (aka "well car") exist for oversize items or the Schnabel car for even larger and heavier loads. With the advent of containerized freight, special types of flatcars were built to carry standard shipping containers and semi-trailers.
• Gondola (US) - railroad car with an open top but enclosed sides and ends, for bulk commodities and other goods that might slide off.
• Hicube boxcars
• Hoppers - similar to gondolas but with bottom dump doors for easy unloading of things like coal, ore, grain, cement, ballast and the like. Short hoppers for carrying iron ore are called ore jennys in the US.
• Lorry - An open wagon (UIC) or gondola (US) with a tipping trough, often found in mines.
• Lowmac (UK) - A low-floor wagon for carrying machinery.
• Modalohr Road Trailer Carriers.
• Open wagon (UIC) - railway wagon with an open top but enclosed sides and ends, for bulk commodities and other goods that might slide off.
• Refrigerator car (or reefer) - a refrigerated subtype of boxcar.
• Roll-block - a train designed to carry another railway train.
• Rolling highway - a train designed to carry trucks and/or semi-trailers
• Side Dump Cars - used to transport roadbed materials such as, ballast, riprap, and large stone, and are able to unload anywhere along the track.
• Slate wagon - specialized freight cars used to transport slate.
• Spine car, a center sill and side sill only car with lateral arms to support intermodal containers. No deck.
• Stock Car - for the transport of livestock.
• Tank car (US), tank wagon (UIC) (or tanker) - for the transportation of liquids or gases.
• Tippler (UK), Gondola (US) (or Lorry) - An open wagon with no doors or roof which are unloaded by being inverted on a Wagon Tippler (UK) or Rotary car dumper (US). They are, used for minerals, such as coal, limestone and iron ore as well as other bulk cargo.
• Transporter wagon - a wagon designed to carry other railway equipment.
• "Whale Belly" car, a tank car with a "belly".

The vast majority of freight cars fit into the above categories.

Non-revenue cars

Typical American extended vision caboose.

• Cabooses (or guard's vans or brakevans) which attach to the rear of freight trains to order to watch the train and assist in shoving moves.
• Clearance car, special car to check for obstructions.
• Handcars, which are powered by their passengers.
• Maintenance of way (MOW) cars, for the maintenance of track and equipment.
  • Tower cars used to maintain overhead lines
  • Track tester
• Rail car mover — some of which resemble HiRail trucks.
• Railroad cranes
• Road-rail vehicle
• Scale test car
• Crew car aka Outfit Car or a Camp Car^[1], a bunk car or modular home mounted on a flatcar to house railroad employees.

Military cars

Armored train Hurban located in Zvolen, Slovakia

Soviet RT-23 Molodets ICBM launch train, in the St Petersburg museum

Military armoured trains use several types of specialized cars:

• artillery — fielding mixture of guns and machine guns
• infantry — fielding machine guns, designed to carry infantry units
• machine gun — dedicated to machine guns
• anti-air — equipped with anti-air guns
• command — similar to infantry wagons, but designed to be a train command center
• anti-tank — equipped with anti-tank guns, usually in a tank gun turret
• platform — unarmoured, with purposes ranging from transport of ammunition or vehicles, through track repair or derailing protection to railroad ploughs for railroad destruction.
• troop sleepers
• DODX is the reporting mark for the United States Department of Defense Military Traffic Management Command. (Index of dodx.)

Mobile missile systems

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union fielded a number of trains that served as mobile missile silos. These trains carried the missile and everything necessary to launch, and were kept moving around the railway network to make them difficult to find and destroy in a first-strike attack. A similar rail-borne system was proposed in the United States of America for the LGM-30 Minuteman in the 1960s, and the LGM-118 Peacekeeper in the 1980s, but neither were deployed.^[2] The Strategic Air Command's 1st Combat Evaluation RBS "Express" did deploy from Barksdale Air Force Base with radar bomb scoring units mounted on military railroad cars with supporting equipment, to score simulated thermonuclear bombing of cities in the continental United States.^[3]

See also

References

External links

• List of railroad car manufacturers by country (French)
• History of the Ralston Steel Car Company, Columbus, Ohio
• Paquette Railway Solutions, dealing with rolling stock and power
• US Air Force Guard Car G-50 Strategic Air Command guard car, rebuilt from Army 1943 troop kitchen car #8750. Photographed at the Western Pacific Railroad Museum in Portola, California.
• Peacekeeper Rail Garrison Car.